Gotts Street Park feat Pip Millett - Sabina Chantouria - Mirrorball - Annie Bartholomew

Gotts Street Park - 'Got To Be Good' feat. Pip Millett.

For new listeners and latecomers there has been no handier introduction to Leeds collective Gotts Street Park than their recent run of releases. Singles "Lost & Found" ft. Charlotte Dos Santos, "Summer Breeze" ft. Rosie Lowe and their 2021 four-track EP Diego are a musical suite of songs that drill into the nucleus of GSP.

Now focused on 2023, Gotts Street Park announce their highly anticipated debut album On The Inside released October 13 via Blue Flowers, alongside sharing new single "Got To Be Good". With their effortless blend of vintage soul meets alt-R&B, "Got To Be Good" is enlivened by Pip Millett’s raw and impassioned vocal. A union from its early notes that submerges listeners into another cinematic Gotts Street Park experience as Millett’s voice voyages over seamless grooves of reel-to-reel keys, guitars and snares.

Talking about their union and new single, Gotts Street Park describe “Got To Be Good, came together pretty fast. Whenever we’ve been in the room with Pip, it’s pretty free and fruitful. When a song comes together like this, we don’t overthink it or alter the final take too much and just hope to have the same energy come through to the listener as we felt in the room creating it.”

Commenting further on the single’s lyrics, Millett says “Got To Be Good is about pulling yourself out of the darkness. You have to really want for a change in order to pull away from that sadness, and that’s what I was writing about.” "Got To Be Good" arrives alongside a video which acts as the song's aesthetic anchor depicting the universal feelings of isolation and unwanted solitude, directed by Harvey Pearson.

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Sabina Chantouria - Echoes.

Sabina Chantouria's sound is as eclectic as her Georgian-Swedish roots. With her velvet voice and rhythmic guitar, she’ll take you on a journey that evokes emotion and leaves you breathless. A 2017 Georgian National finalist for Eurovision, she has performed at numerous festivals and live on television and radio, working with music producers worldwide.

The single pulls us into a rich soundscape with Rock, Pop and Americana influences along with powerful heartfelt melodies and lyrics. Sabina says ''We all carry memories of someone close to us that has left a huge impact in our lives. 'Echoes' is a song about time, and memories that awake bittersweet feelings.''

The single was recorded by California based music producer Dave Jenkins (who also provides harmonies and keyboard), with world-renowned musicians like Kenny Aronoff on drums (John Fogerty, Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson m f.l), Doug Pettibone on slide guitar (Lucinda Williams, Marianne Faithful m f.l) and Jorgen Carlsson on bass (Gov't Mule).

Music Elevator PR · Sabina Chantouria - Echoes

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Mirrorball - Red Hot Dust.

Mirrorball, the dreamy LA pop duo consisting of singer/songwriter Alexandra Johnstone and multi-instrumentalist and composer Scott Watson, announces the drop of their second single "Red Hot Dust" from the upcoming debut EP, produced by Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

Mirrorball is the brainchild of Johnstone and Watson, both veterans of the LA indie scene. Following a successful debut in 2019 with two dream pop songs on Dangerbird Records, the duo caught the attention of acclaimed producer Chris Coady, meeting him at Sunset Sound to discuss their next recording. Over the next few months, they formed a special bond with Coady resulting in the upcoming EP, showcasing a unique blend of dreamy, nostalgic pop.

Johnstone states that “Red Hot Dust ” was written "during difficult times as a way of forcing some light to the surface, and because I wanted to feel like I could go home again at a time when I could not physically go home.”

“Red Hot Dust” evokes a hazy, distant past. It’s driving down the LA freeway with the top-down, molten lava flowing where the asphalt used to be. It’s being trapped in a crystal ball in the middle of a desert. The sun is beating down and time is standing still.

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Annie Bartholomew - Mountain Dove Song.

After nearly a decade of performing in Alaska’s rowdy bar scene, Juneau folksinger Annie Bartholomew became haunted by the stories of sex workers during the 19th century after touring the brothel museum at Skagway’s Red Onion Saloon. This week, Bartholomew shared the new single "Mountain Dove Song” from her debut album Sisters of White Chapel.

After conversations with her friend, Arkansas songwriter Willi Carlisle, the scope of the project came to include a play and stage show. The result is her debut album Sisters of White Chapel, out June 16. The music accompanies a play that she wrote Sisters of White Chapel: A Short But True Story, which premiered to acclaim in Bartholomew’s hometown of Juneau.

The close-sung “Mountain Dove Song” addresses the secrecy that these women needed to have to move on with their lives after sex work. Of the song, Bartholomew recounts, "I was inspired by many stories of women, but especially Maude Parrish who brought her banjo to the Yukon at 19, escaping a bad marriage in San Francisco. Maude’s roommate was a Dawson City sexworker, and I tried to imagine the life of her cabin mate in this piece. It was composed during my 2019 artist residency in the Yukon where I did most of my woodshedding in a timber frame cabin in Ship Yard’s Park on the Yukon River."

In contrast to the art created for tourists, Annie envisioned a musical work that would share these omissions of Alaska’s mining past, and embody the stories of women in Victorian-era Alaska. Through archival materials, personal history, and Alaska’s stringband traditions, Bartholomew brings these women to life, extracting the emotional truth of who they were, why they risked everything to follow a gold rush, and their subsequent journeys and misadventures along the way.

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Mirrorball - Le Module - The Silver Lake Chorus

Just over a month ago we featured Mirrorball for the first time with the song 'This Time' and they return now with another fine track titled 'Natural World', and once again their dream pop is gorgeous.

Le Module has shared 'Lovers In Twos' where Joe Robbins distinct vocal style and his multi instrumental abilities are impressive, as is the song.

Our second feature for The Silver Lake Chorus is a new song and video for 'Not Now' a beautifully natural sounding choral piece that gently and sensitively, charms it's way into our lives.
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Mirrorball - Natural World.

Mirrorball shares a new single "Natural World"; an ode to the oddities that come with aging. "Natural World" is part of Dangerbird's Microdose single series. Dangerbird Records is proud to announce the latest artist to feature in their Microdose single series, Los Angeles dream pop upstarts Mirrorball.

Mirrorball is the newly-formed project of singer/songwriter Alexandra Johnstone and guitarist Scott Watson. Johnstone and Watson are both fixtures of the Los Angeles underground music scene. The roots of Johnstone’s songwriting inspiration date back to first hearing Leonard Cohen’s Songs from a Room, prompting her to “put poems to music.” She went on to front the band Monster, later known as White Dove, as a vehicle for her more minimalist, folk-woven leanings, garnering comparisons to the music of Low and Cat Power. Watson’s musical history dates back to playing in various groups in Silver Lake’s early 2000s indie rock heyday.

Johnstone and Watson’s combined efforts in Mirrorball push both musicians into new territory. The Los Angeles band’s otherworldly yet grounded sound evokes imagery of abandoned shopping malls and 1980s coming-of-age movies. Johnstone’s hauntingly memorable vocal lines are supplemented by dense beds of swelling synthesizer and strikingly bare, percussive guitar parts that fuse together into a compelling whole.

Singer Alexandra Johnstone states "“Natural World” is about how life starts to get really weird once you get to a certain age. Old relationships fall apart either through misunderstanding or understanding each other too well. It’s also about losing people to more tragic circumstances and how it feels as if there’s “no reason” good enough for it to have happened.

All of a sudden you feel like a creaky ship whose compass and anchor have been lost overboard. You’re in the middle of stormy seas and now you have to figure out how the hell to get anywhere without any of the navigation you used to rely on.

You start to make all these resolutions to yourself like “I’m just going to stay home and drink tea and read books and live the quiet life”.

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Le Module - Lovers In Twos.

Le Module (London-based electronic artist Joe Robbins) demonstrates his vocal and multi-instrumental prowess in the tentative ‘Lovers In Twos’, following the hypnotic single ‘I’ve Lost Centre’ from his debut ‘EP1’ via Molten Keys.

Originally from Yorkshire, Le Module creates thoughtfully warped pop music. ‘EP1’ is a collection varying from soundtracks to a late-night drive, to distinctly more danceable numbers, with wistful vocals underpinned by his considered production.

Previously one half of dance duo Pavan, after several semi-legendary parties in the Molten Keys garden studio, the time felt right for a solo project. Le Module sees Joe exploring both his more experimental tendencies, and his talent for traditional song-writing, whilst drawing on the drum machine and synth-based euphoria that made a Pavan party so magical.

Diverging from the mesmerising dance track ‘I’ve Lost Centre’, Joe’s ‘Lovers in Twos’ is a stylish track whose opening sound is reminiscent of Grace Jones’ ‘Island Life’ with its minimal groove. It’s the result of Joe playing a dizzying array of instruments including piano, tabla, the ever-present synths, and trumpet himself.

This intoxicating mix is paired with Le Module’s distinct Yorkshire croon, inspired by the conversational manner of Leonard Cohen and Baxter Dury. “Musing on love, choice, betrayal and regret,” he eventually bursts into song with his soaring vocals.

‘Lovers in Twos’ and its preceding single are shining examples of the diverse soundscapes that Le Module crafts so easily, promising his upcoming ‘EP1’ to be an alt-pop gem.

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The Silver Lake Chorus - Not Now.

The new original song and video by Lucius written exclusively for the choir, sung by The Silver Lake Chorus is entitled ’Not Not’ the single features melodic and emotive heartbreak and follows the songwriters’ lead, singing in perfectly aligned unison, as Lucius’s frontwomen are known to do.

The Silver Lake Chorus performs choral arrangements of indie music and exudes both the edgy, independent spirit of Silver Lake and the heart of community choral singing. The collective has previously performed original tracks written exclusively for the chorus by artist such as Sia, Tegan and Sara and Bon Iver.

The Silver Lake Chorus is celebrating their Los Angeles roots. Partnering with LA-based artists Van Dyke Parks and Lucius, and producer Luke Top (Fools Gold, Cass Mccombs), TSLC is putting out two new tracks that serve as a delicious follow-up to their critically-acclaimed 2015 debut, which, according to The Wall Street Journal, relied on “the beauty and expressiveness of the voices to make its mark.” The same can be said for Lucius’s “Not Not” and Van Dyke Parks’ “Tabu,” which signal a return to the group’s choral roots after their celebrated 2016 remix album, which earned producer starRo a 2017 Grammy nomination for best remixed recording for “Heavy Star Movin’.”

Upon collaborating with The Silver Lake Chorus for the documentary film Markie in Milwaukee, film composer Morgan Z. Whirledge opined, “The power of multiple human voices, there’s nothing like it. You can use software and you can layer one person over and over again, but there’s just really nothing like getting a bunch of people together in a room. It is what it is and it can’t be replicated.” The Silver Lake Chorus figured this out over nine years ago when they first formed as a Los Angeles-based choir that could also be described as an indie rock band... with twenty lead singers. Their latest recordings are even more stripped down than usual, exposing their raw musicianship and vocal talent rather than slick production value. As TSLC’s music director Mikey Wells puts it, “We wanted the recording process to capture our natural choral sound, to have as few layers between the vocals and the listeners’ ears as possible, so we popped a couple mics in a room and pressed record.” The result: two gorgeous tracks that revel in lush harmonies and playful instrumentation and lay bare the irreplicable power and pleasure of multiple human voices.


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Mirrorball - Far Caspian - The Silver Lake Chorus - Her Crooked Heart - Strangejuice - Corduroy Spaceship

We have received some fine music through the Microdose single series and 'This Time' from Mirrorball is no exception their dream pop is quite exquisite. Far Caspian return for a fifth time here, the latest song 'Astoria' is once again full of smooth hooks and a fine melodic vibe. The Silver Lake Chorus as you might expect know how to perform a chorus (and some), 'Tabu' is a splendid affair that gives indie music a unique dimension. We have a new video and a recent single from Her Crooked Heart, both are creative pieces and rather addictive. Alt rockers Strangejuice are fascinating, their music is original and just a little quirky, with the lyrics worth a little attention along the way! We finish this selection with South Australia's Corduroy Spaceship and a melodic and extremely catchy indie song 'About Everything'.

Mirrorball - This Time.

Mirrorball have shared a new video for their single "This Time"; a shimmering sinking light show with a hint of 1980s. "This Time" is part of Dangerbird's Microdose single series.

Dangerbird Records is proud to announce the latest artist to feature in their Microdose single series, Los Angeles dream pop upstarts Mirrorball.

Mirrorball is the newly-formed project of singer/songwriter Alexandra Johnstone and guitarist Scott Watson. Johnstone and Watson are both fixtures of the Los Angeles underground music scene. The roots of Johnstone’s songwriting inspiration date back to first hearing Leonard Cohen’s Songs from a Room, prompting her to “put poems to music.” She went on to front the band Monster, later known as White Dove, as a vehicle for her more minimalist, folk-woven leanings, garnering comparisons to the music of Low and Cat Power. Watson’s musical history dates back to playing in various groups in Silver Lake’s early 2000s indie rock heyday.

Johnstone and Watson’s combined efforts in Mirrorball push both musicians into new territory. The Los Angeles band’s otherworldly yet grounded sound evokes imagery of abandoned shopping malls and 1980s coming-of-age movies. Johnstone’s hauntingly memorable vocal lines are supplemented by dense beds of swelling synthesizer and strikingly bare, percussive guitar parts that fuse together into a compelling whole.

The debut A-Side single “This Time” is a more uptempo post-new wave number imbued with mystery and longing. Johnstone’s words ring out with poignancy over a sea of fluttering keyboard arpeggios, culminating with the almost cautionary phrase “never say this time.” The accompanying B-Side “Natural World” slows things down into a pulsing soup of dark Tropicália and slow motion disco. Johnstone reveals her Cohen-esque poetry influence in her plaintive uttering of the song’s opening line – “Think I’ll live the quiet life, stop living by the knife.”


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Far Caspian - Astoria.

Flitting between insular, emotionally engaging bedroom-pop and moments of festival-ready breathlessness across their iconic hazy sound, Leeds trio Far Caspian’s sonic formula is earning them fans at an exponential rate. New single Astoria epitomises this thrilling contradiction; calm, slowly grooving verses clear the decks for expansive choruses, replete with a timeless synth line. It’s the final preview ahead of imminent sophomore EP The Heights, out June 11th via Dance To The Radio.

Emerging last year with a collection of catchy lo-fi gems on hazy debut EP Between Days, and crafting their self-coined ‘melanjolly’ style to widespread critical praise, the trio’s newest output showcases their trademark sound with fresh commercial overtones and a very intentional 80s production sheen. Blending these two shades on a UK tour in support of the debut EP last month peaked with thrilling, sold-out debut headline shows in London and Manchester.

Discussing their forthcoming single, frontman Joel Johnston states: “’Astoria’ is the song on the EP that kind of sums up the feeling we wanted to put across, embracing the good things in your life when things aren’t so good.

Before we had started writing any of the songs I had already decided that there would be a track with this name. It's a town in Oregon where the Goonies was shot. The Goonies has been my favourite movie since I was no age, and I've always wished I lived in that neighbourhood – this is me trying to emulate what I heard in my head when I pictured the town.

Me and Alessio were lying in the living room hungover when we wrote the chorus for the song. It came from nowhere and we just went with it.”

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The Silver Lake Chorus - Tabu.

The Silver Lake Chorus is celebrating their Los Angeles roots. Partnering with LA-based artists Van Dyke Parks and Lucius, and producer Luke Top (Fools Gold, Cass Mccombs), TSLC is putting out two new tracks that serve as a delicious follow-up to their critically-acclaimed 2015 debut, which, according to The Wall Street Journal, relied on “the beauty and expressiveness of the voices to make its mark.” The same can be said for Lucius’s “Not Not” and Van Dyke Parks’ “Tabu,” which signal a return to the group’s choral roots after their celebrated 2016 remix album, which earned producer starRo a 2017 Grammy nomination for best remixed recording for “Heavy Star Movin’.”

Upon collaborating with The Silver Lake Chorus for the documentary film Markie in Milwaukee, film composer Morgan Z. Whirledge opined, “The power of multiple human voices, there’s nothing like it. You can use software and you can layer one person over and over again, but there’s just really nothing like getting a bunch of people together in a room. It is what it is and it can’t be replicated.” The Silver Lake Chorus figured this out over nine years ago when they first formed as a Los Angeles-based choir that could also be described as an indie rock band... with twenty lead singers. Their latest recordings are even more stripped down than usual, exposing their raw musicianship and vocal talent rather than slick production value. As TSLC’s music director Mikey Wells puts it, “We wanted the recording process to capture our natural choral sound, to have as few layers between the vocals and the listeners’ ears as possible, so we popped a couple mics in a room and pressed record.” The result: two gorgeous tracks that revel in lush harmonies and playful instrumentation and lay bare the irreplicable power and pleasure of multiple human voices.

In “Not Not,” written for the the chorus by indie pop band Lucius, the chorus opted to follow the songwriters’ lead, singing in perfectly aligned unison, as Lucius’s frontwomen Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig are known to do, until the harmonies delicately split then build to a powerful and affecting crescendo. The recurrent phrase “none of this means nothing at all” swells alongside soprano Jett Kwong Kelly’s solitary and evocative guzheng accompaniment, and by the song’s end, the lyrics’ double negative implications leave us with a cleansing sense of loss and clarity.

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Her Crooked Heart - Windswept / Courthouse.

Her Crooked Heart is the new name; the new music of Rachel Ries - multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer, rock & roll choir director, sideman and singer. Her Crooked Heart’s forthcoming album, To Love To Leave To Live (out May 31st) features members of Bon Iver, Shane Leonard and string arrangements by the inimitable Rob Moose. First single Courthouse was recently released followed by the new video for single Windswept released this week.

With To Love To Leave To Live, Minneapolis-based Her Crooked Heart presents a debut record unique in form, made up of cyclical narratives and intertwining histories, each informing the next. The result is a transformative song cycle, led by a charismatic personality, wholly indifferent to expectations of genre and instrumentation. Rachel Ries, the writer, multi-instrumentalist and producer behind Her Crooked Heart, demonstrates immense vulnerability and multifaceted musical craftsmanship to deliver a personal and profound musical soliloquy on love, leaving and the life that follows after burning it all down.

To bring these songs and this record to the stage (and to the UK for the first time with a full band) Ries has enlisted a powerful group of women; women who can, in their way, take on the feminine, humanist mantle of Her Crooked Heart and make it their own: Siri Undlin (Humbird), Adelyn Strei (Adro), Hilary James (We Are The Willows, Bathtub Cig). The quartet blends classical and electric guitar; piano and vintage synths, cello, woodwinds and drum triggers. This merging of acoustic and synthetic sounds is all in service of the voice: four park vocal harmonies that shift from  ether to eat elemental wail, always telling a story of transformation.


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Strangejuice - Home Shopping.

The latest full-length album from prolific underground indie rock outfit StrangeJuice entitled "Raising Cannibals", is due for independent release May 10th.

During the writing and creation of this album, nothing was sober, everything was afternoon, and there was a constant background of live chickens. The entire record was conceived and created in roughly two weeks, so nothing had long enough to be overthought, contrived, or to become stale.

Strangejuice is a prolific underground indie outfit who mix absurdist prose with conventional and unconventional musical instruments and artistic approach. With a discography of ten album releases spanning over a decade, StrangeJuice has a small cult following that keep catalogue of StrangeJuice's life's work and purpose here in the universe.

From banjo plucks, screeching birds and  shuffling cards, StrangeJuice records and masters all their work in a secret studio in Perth, Western Australia overlooking the mountains where the alcohol flows as free as the natural rivers.

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Corduroy Spaceship - About Everything.

Emerging last month with his loveable debut single 'About Everything', multi-instrumentalist Corduroy Spaceship is now blasting off with the follow-up EP, Corduroy Spaceship & The Custard Gumboot.

Unravelling a sound which screams Summer, Corduroy Spaceship's debut EP cannonballs into a psychedelic pool of reverberated melodies, striking guitar riffs and vast, ethereal soundscapes. Across five sweeping tracks, Corduroy Spaceship & The Custard explores themes of love, life and death through the unique peephole of modern psych pop.

Anthemic yet beautifully laidback, highlight track 'Burden' aligns Corduroy Spaceship with contemporaries such as Tame Impala, Pond and Yellow Days. Driven by a choir of twangy guitar chords and a grooving bass tones, lyrically 'Burden' echos the fragile instrumentation with a introspective narrative. "I was in the friend zone for many years and I let loving this girl ruin me. The track is kinda explaining that and talking about how I'd never be her burden, even though she was mine." Corduroy Spaceship explains.

Hailing from Mount Gambier in rural South Australia, Corduroy Spaceship is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Torsten Gustavsson, who recorded, mixed, and mastered all instrumentation aside from drums on the EP.

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